At the present time, satisfactory options for female birth control are limited. Nonsurgical methods such as birth control pills and other pharmaceutical solutions rely on the user to remember to take the medication. Further, pharmaceuticals are simply unaffordable or inaccessible to many women around the world. The most common surgical method for female birth control is tubal ligation. While effective, this surgery is highly invasive, painful, and cosmetically undesirable. Although less invasive surgical techniques and devices have been proposed for female sterilization, they have generally proven either disastrous (for example, the intrauterine device (IUD)) or less than optimally effective. The more successful systems attempt to close the fallopian tube, but require tissue ingrowth into a coil or other device, or growth of scar tissue as a result of treatment with heat, cold, RF or chemicals, such that sterilization follows the procedure several months later at a time that is not known to the patient. That is, sterilization is not immediate, but instead relies on the healing response of the body. Further, an invasive diagnostic procedure to confirm closure may be required.
The use of the same reference symbols in different figures indicates similar or identical items.